Alkaid
by Le Fez-Wearing Husky
Summary: An archaeological dig at the site of an ancient Egyptian tomb sets the scene for a variety of bizarre and impossible occurrences. And Dipper Pines, a young cryptologist tasked with deciphering the atavistic runes carved within the temple walls, is intent on investigating them all. But as the secrets elude him, he soon turns to desperation in his sheer curiosity. [AU. BillDip.]
1. Prologue: Beyond Extreme

**Yep, looks like it's another weird AU from moi.~ This time, I'm trying my hand at Gravity Falls. I actually started writing this story a while ago, thought about ditching it, but came back with renewed interest after watching the GF finale. Anyway, long story short, I'm now posting this on the Internet to see what people think and offer their opinions on whether I should continue or not. This goes without saying but any feedback, be it good or bad, is greatly appreciated.~**

 **Anyway, a few things to say about this story before you start reading. It should be obvious from the character settings but this is a BillDip fanfiction, the central pairing will be BillDip, so if you don't like it, you'll be wasting your time reading it.** **There will also probably be side pairings, the details of which I'm not quite clear on at this point, but there is a high chance of Mabcifica occurring. Just wanted to make that clear.**

 **The rating is set at T for now because I have never been willing to write smut. However, there will be angst. Lots and lots of angst. Did I mention that this was a BillDip fanfiction? Yeah. Angst.**

 **Virtually all the non-adult characters are aged up in this AU, with possible exceptions. They're university student age, so somewhere between 19 and 25. Stan and Ford are about ten years younger for the express reason that they remain alive. Bill takes on a human form (I have nothing against triangles, believe me, that's honestly just the way I prefer to write him). As for everything else... I'll leave you to find out.**

 **I very much hope you enjoy.**

 **-Le Fez-Wearing Husky**

* * *

 **Prologue: Beyond Extreme**

He could see nothing.

Well, technically, that was a lie.

There was in fact a generous amount of light. It radiated from multiple sources, casting distorted shards of illumination over the khaki walls of a sizeable tent.

An upended torch serving as a makeshift bedside lamp shot light directly upward, illuminating the numerous pinups tacked to the tent's folds; high-resolution photographs of hieroglyph-carved relics incessantly drawn over and annotated; crisp sheets of paper almost obscured by scribbled ciphers, symbols and algebraic equations.

A circle of eight vaguely antique candles, their wicks glowing an unnatural blue shade, surrounded a sleeping bag hunched in the centre of the tent. A very faint, almost unnoticeable, breeze blew inward from the Saharan crepuscule through the numerous rips in the tent's fabric, causing the flames to flicker, so very slightly.

The human contained within the sleeping bag hunched over himself, shivering. Brown eyes scanned the not-darkness relentlessly. Nothing. He was alone.

He waited for so long, in such utter desperation, he almost began to weep. But he caught himself before he could. There was no way, no way in _hell_ or whatever diabolic dimension existed out there that he would ever let himself do that in front of… of _him_.

His shiver intensified when he realised that was probably _exactly_ the reason why _he_ hadn't turned up yet. Just piling on the psychological torture. Teasing his sanity out from within him like a thread, little by little, reducing him into the madness that he had always had the potential to become.

"You… you're still there, right?" He fought to keep the emotion out of his voice. "We still have our deal, right? Right!?" An octave of pure fervent desperation vibrated off his tongue, rattling through the air as though through a skeletal body.

"Sssh," a soft voice, emanating from seemingly nowhere, sounded. The brown-haired cryptologist almost jumped in response to a light pressure against his lips. Two fingers, gloved. The digits glimmered with ethereal, oneiric radiation. A pulsating pulsar, an electromagnetic anomaly. Bowtie, cane, top hat and tailcoat; your typical steampunk aristocrat with a passion for the colours yellow and black. Save for the one visible eye, the catlike iris that gazed upon him, full of something that the cryptologist could barely describe or understand. "No need to shout, Pine Tree. I'm right here."

The demon hung upside down in a casual, mocking fashion. He flicked the tip of the cryptologist's nose with one hand whilst simultaneously twisting a finger of his opposite hand through a lock of the former's hair, as though he owned it. The brunette squirmed at the contact, but did not attempt to break free.

"You… you did this on purpose… didn't you?" The young cryptologist considered that he should probably be exhibiting feelings of anger towards the demon, but instead his speech was resigned. He was unable to contradict the waves of relief that drowned out almost all other emotion.

"Well, it just so happens that the sight of you scurrying around, getting your little head all anxious and worried, being unable to think about anything but _me_ … well, it's all highly amusing." A sudden pixelated, glitchy distortion, and the demon was the right side up, floating mere centimetres above the cryptologist's body. "And not to mention flattering."

"...That… that's not true!" the brunette hurriedly denied. He could feel his cheeks burning with a painfully familiar sensation as garbled chains of profanity shot through his mind. "I'm not that obsessed with you. I just… I just want answers."

"Say that if it makes you feel better, Pine Tree." The demon shrugged. "But I _know_. I know you better than you ever could. Y'know?" He chortled. "No, of course you don't. You've come a long way since we first met, sure. But you still don't know shit. I mean, you really don't know _anything_."

"I know that," the cryptologist muttered defensively. "That's why I tried to summon you again. I've been waiting for _nights_. There's one thing missing from this equation. Something only you could find. I _need_ you."

"So, I've finally made you willing to beg. What does this mean for me? Do I get what I was promised?" An unfathomably golden iris bored into the brunette expectantly. An intent smile settled on his features. "So, Pine Tree? What's it going to be?"

The cryptologist gulped. But before he could respond, the demon's hand moved.

Caressing his cheek, stroking his neck, trailing ever so subtly down his exposed chest. That oneiric touch left a subconscious mark, a sensation from a dream, experienced during wakefulness. The sensation caused the cryptologist's body to shudder from head to toe. "Ah…" He could barely handle it. This… _teasing_. It was, quite literally, driving him insane.

"What's it going to be, Pine Tree?" the rhythmic question came again. The brunette barely noticed it; he was far too fixated on the demonic contact that was giving him that so oddly pleasurable sensation. A sensation made almost physical by the demon's burgeoning power.

All too soon those gloved fingers had moved back to his cheeks, cupping them, squeezing them forcefully, as though the demon was attempting to mould frozen plasticine. "I'm sure _this_ will help you make up your mind."

Before the cryptologist could register movement, ethereal lips connected to his own. Intense, indescribable feelings. No words truly existed to convey that particular experience. The cryptologist felt _some_ part of the demon enter his body, but it was not conventional; instead, metaphysical. A glimpse of knowledge beyond the limits of perceptual understanding. A tiny window into an infinite world of omniscience. Of information so primordial that it transcended time itself, eternally. Of the world that the demon inhabited. Even that miniscule insight was almost too much. A sharp, unphysical pain bolted right through the brunette, leaving a meta-throbbing in its wake. He gasped as the vision left his mind, almost as quickly as it had entered.

Gloved hands travelled back to his neck and waited, waited for the vibration of his larynx that would signal his answer. The cryptologist was enthralled. Defeated.

"…Do it."

"Gladly."

Memories rushed together, faster and faster, until they reached the point of convergence. The cryptologist was ripped from the body he had once inhabited independently and then merged back into it, now part of a bigger whole. Psychological chains immediately bound him, tethering him, constraining him. The agony exceeded any known limit. He gasped, and his lungs filled with the air of his own dreams.

 _How did it come to this?_


	2. Chapter 1: Beetle Juice

**Chapter One: Beetle Juice**

"How did it come to this?"

The words reverberated, echoing off the enclosed walls at an almost eerie wavelength. The intricately carved subterranean granite reflected each syllable, relaying the sound from one image, one symbol, to another.

Columns of hieroglyphs and pictorial stories closed in together. Gods preserved in the stones of time; Anubis, Bast, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Ammit the Devourer, and most of all, Ra. The divine solar entity perpetuated the small chamber, signifying that this was a crypt of kings.

And yet the king himself was nowhere to be found.

Dipper Pines's eyes had thoroughly scoured every inch of the dust-shrouded chamber, and yet he could not find any clues as to why this burial chamber was so _empty_ of typical burial chamber items. Neither sarcophagus nor shabti were to be found anywhere. Still, Dipper figured that it _must_ be a burial chamber. After translating the hieroglyphs almost five times over, he found no evidence that suggested otherwise. And with those rather macabre canopic jars clustered furtively in one corner, there was almost no doubt.

Still, there was definitely _something_ here that kept drawing him back, again and again, like a fish on a hook, to this room, rather than any of the other chambers in this majestic labyrinthine tomb. But _why?_ What was here? What had he overlooked? What had happened in this room?

How did it come to this?

Dipper sighed. The air gushing from his mouth rippled through the hypogeal atmosphere. He leant back against the wall behind him, scuffing the creases of his shirt as he slowly slid down into a crouching position. His fingers simultaneously ran down the hewn granite, tracing the outlines of individual bricks, noting the transition between rough exposed stone and the smoother patches where colour had been applied. Halfway down, however, he stopped.

His digits hit an anomaly in the wall, a place that, for all intents and purposes, should not exist. A rift between the bricks, free of mortar, creating a gap that Dipper could just about squeeze his fingertips into.

Brown eyebrows furrowed as he turned to look, keeping his hand in place. At first the block looked just like any other in the room. But as Dipper traced his fingers around the edges, it became clearer and clearer that this single granite block was not at all like the others. Faint, mostly concealed grooves at each corner indicated that the block had been used as a type of lid or cover in order to plug a gap. But just what was worth hiding so delicately? Dipper had to admit that the opening was hidden well. It was impossible to distinguish by sight alone.

Curiosity immediately consumed him, but he held himself back. The loose block could well be concealing some sort of booby trap, or a nest of scorpions, or…

 _It's best to take precautions. Just in case…_ Dipper decided as he pulled himself up from his painful squatting position.

"Wendy!" The call echoed alternately along the walls; an audible zigzag. "I think I've found something!"

In direct contrast to Dipper's shakily ardent yell, the response came as a series of relaxed, casual footsteps. A redhead archaeologist entered the chamber, her hands shoved deeply into the pockets of her beige capris. She blew a stray lock of auburn from her face, simultaneously adjusting the rim of the wide bleach hat she wore. "Yo, Dips. What's up?" Wendy greeted, punctuating her words with a friendly (although painful) punch to Dipper's forearm.

Dipper grinned in a feeble attempt to mask his wince of pain. "Hey, Wendy. I was hoping that you could help me out. I think I might've found something!" His voice was shaky with anticipated fervour.

Even Wendy, with her typically relaxed demeanour, reacted with surprise. "Seriously?" she proclaimed, auburn eyebrows ascending. "Prof Ford drags us out to this desert, telling us that there's all sorts of strange unsolved mysteries and stuff, but since we dug up the place nothing's happened here." She shrugged. "I mean, yeah, the architecture's cool and whatever, but -"

"Yeah, yeah, I agree completely," Dipper interrupted. "Look right here. At this block. Can you see it?" He gestured towards the architectural anomaly.

Wendy squatted and leaned in towards the wall, frowning. She hummed as her fingers traced the edges, experimentally tapping the block, observing, waiting.

"Yeah, dude. There's definitely a hollow cavity behind here," she concluded after several moments had passed. She braced her hands around the edges and prepared to pull.

"W-wait!" Dipper yelped. "Are you sure you should be pulling it out right _now_? What if it's part of the wall's support system? What if taking it out causes the whole thing to collapse on us?"

Wendy glanced over at him in bemusement. She shook her head, chuckling lightly. "Nah, dude. I don't think so. I'm an archaeologist. I know this stuff."

That statement was not much consolation to Dipper, however. As Wendy hefted the stone with strength befitting that of a lumberjack's daughter, he could not push the nightmarish possibilities from his mind – scorpions the size of cats, the roof disintegrating; heck, even the mummy of the long-lost pharaoh could appear, groping limply and disgustingly towards him...

 _Seriously?_ Dipper chided himself. _That's like something from a children's cartoon._

The cryptologist's frantic imagination went into overdrive as Wendy finally prised the heavy block from its prison. She set the stone to one side, exhaling in exertion. But otherwise, there were no malignant side effects.

"Dipper," Wendy called, still slightly breathless. "There's definitely something here. But I think it's more your field…"

Said brunette blinked. "Really? What did you find?" As he spoke, he moved eagerly towards the gaping hole in the tomb wall. Wendy moved aside to give him viewing space.

Several tiers of characters, symbols and digits, some familiar, some arcane, were carved in a dizzying spiral about metre into the wall from the opening. There were a few hieroglyphs, but otherwise the inscriptions were totally out of place; Dipper picked out Korean characters, Roman numerals, occult glyphs and some even stranger items. The esoteric gibberish surrounded the central figure of a large single eye set within a triangle; something Dipper immediately associated with Illuminati and Freemason iconography. But something was different about it. Surreal. Almost comic. The triangular figure sported arms and legs, in addition to what appeared to be a bowtie and top hat. The figure was intricately carved and appeared to emit golden pulses of light from its optic epicentre; the kind of eerily kitsch illumination one would associate with Hollywood-grade CGI.

"I… I think the symbols here are some sort of red herring," Dipper muttered after a few moments.

"You think so?" Wendy glanced at him, one eyebrow askew.

The cryptologist nodded. "Even if it does mean _something_ , it's been enciphered with such complexity that even those who knew what all the symbols meant and were privy to the secret would have a hard time decrypting it. It's… impractical. Plus, it's just… the way it's written, in that spiral shape. Is that a trademark? Or is it just an additional feature that helps draw attention to it?"

"So, what you're saying is…" Wendy began.

Dipper met the archaeologist's eyes. "The true clue is elsewhere. And it's probably something that's only meant to exist for a few moments after someone pulls out the block –" He stopped. "Oh, crap! It could be gone already!"

"Relax, Dipper." Wendy abruptly thrust her head into the cavity, pushing the brunette roughly out of the way in the process. "Mmm," she hummed, her voice distorted slightly by the enclosed walls of the aperture. "Yep, I think I've found what you're looking for."

"R-really? Is… is it still coherent?" Dipper was at this point visibly shaking. "Wendy, Wendy, let me see."

Said redhead moved out of the way and Dipper crawled into the vacated space. "Just look up," she instructed.

Following that vague command, the cryptologist tilted his head towards the roof of the narrow interstice. He gasped at what he saw.

A scrambling tribe of scarab beetles carpeted the ceiling with iridescent carapaces. Some were rapidly on the move, exploring the world that they had only now just been exposed to with adventurous zeal. However, most remained collected into particular formations against the rock, only slight ripples of motion undulating through them as they woke up out of hibernation.

As Dipper watched, these ripples became waves. The beetles were on the move, and their message would not last for much more than a few fleeting minutes. The cryptologist swallowed, adjusting the angle of his head so he could read the characters that the beetles' bodies had formed. The entomological message read:

BV DSL DRHS GL HFNNLM GSV YROO XRKSVI GIRZMTOV:

Z ULINZGRLM LU VRTSG DZC XZMWOVH

ZG HRCGVVM GSRIRB-GDL

QFORFH, XZOO SRH MZNV

ZMV SV HSZOO ZKKVZI.

Dipper read through each line as quickly as humanly possible. All the while, his brain, almost unconsciously, attempted different methods of decryption, discarded them, and tried again. His thoughts came in rapid succession: _Latin letters. A Caesar shift? No, doesn't work. Not possible. Affine, then? Atbash substitution… "Ye who"… Yeah, we're getting something here._

From there, it was almost overwhelmingly easy for the cryptologist. The message was decoded in a matter of seconds. If truth be told, he had expected something much harder, but given the fact that he was on a time limit, he wasn't exactly complaining about it.

He scanned through the receding characters again to check he had decoded it correctly. But he was fairly certain; although the decrypted message was still rather obscure, at least it made sense.

Dipper backed out of the hole, fumbling for his blue biro and clicking the nib into action. He rapidly scrawled the deciphered message onto his palm before it could dissipate from his memory.

It was only then that he allowed himself to release his pent-up breath.

He glanced up at Wendy and smiled in blissful relief. "I think I've got it, Wendy."

"Great. Spill it." The redhead leaned forward eagerly.

The cryptologist cleared his throat, as through preparing for a grand speech. "Okay. This is what it says.

'YE WHO WISH TO SUMMON THE BILL CIPHER TRIANGLE:

A FORMATION OF EIGHT WAX CANDLES

AT SIXTEEN THIRTY-TWO

JULIUS, CALL HIS NAME

AND HE SHALL APPEAR.'"

Dipper exhaled deeply as he spoke the last syllable. The last of the adrenalin receded, and yet his intrigue remained. It was only once he had read the message that he could fully comprehend it. And it truly was bizarre.

"Don't know what the fuck that means," Wendy commented, "but hey. Anything interesting is totally cool with me." She chuckled lightly. "It's funny, actually. When you said 'Julius, call his name' I thought you were talking about my ex-boyfriend."

"O-oh," the cryptologist blushed slightly, returning the chuckle. "Well, anyway. I guess we should show this to Grunk – I mean, Professor Ford."

"Yeah, you could do that." Wendy made to move back into the excavated crevice. "While you're doing that, I'll take some snaps of those weird beetles before they scurry away."

"Yeah…" Dipper's tone was much calmer than he felt. The dynamy of his thoughts was almost beyond description. There were too many questions… just too damn many. It had always amazed Dipper to see the coolness and nonchalance that Wendy maintained, even in situations like this. Wasn't she even the least bit concerned as to why, or even how, that message existed?

The tomb had been buried under a valley of sand until just a couple of weeks ago, and yet… the message most certainly was not of Ancient Egyptian origin. The Atbash cipher had originated from the Hebrew alphabet, for starters. So what was it doing here? Everything seemed impossible. But that only gave Dipper a stronger incentive to find out just what was going on.

As he gazed down at the scrawled letters on his hand, the ink already running from the sweat beading on his palm, a single thought crossed his mind.

 _How_ did _it come to this?_


	3. Chapter 2: Professor and the Princess

**Chapter Two: The Professor and the Princess**

The equatorial sun had no care for the fact that it was mid-autumn; it continued blazing ruthlessly regardless. Its rays were scattered twinkling by the inscrutable waters of the Nile. Riverside palms cast disproportionately thin shadows under its unfeeling gaze.

The bowl-shaped valley was surrounded by aureate dunes; sand lapped over its sides and spilled into the oasis of greenery beneath.

At first glance, the area seemed almost devoid of human habitation. Yet, a small collection of rudimentary, hut-like houses clung to the riverbanks, surrounded by sparse fields and goatherds, and beyond that, nothing.

This was the village of Jadhibiat al'ard-alssuqut, otherwise known as the middle of nowhere. It was an elusive place, known to few and visited by even less. But, if the rumours were to be believed, it was the origin site of a multitude of wild mysteries and unexplained phenomena.

The locals were rather casual about it all; they kept themselves to themselves, and many of them had never even been outside their secluded valley. They lived in a world lost in time; and indeed, little here had changed since the fall of the New Kingdom all those millennia ago.

About a mile out of the village's perimeter, a congregation of khaki tents could be seen, clustered in the shade against the cliffs. A sparkling tower of descending water pummelled the rocks continuously, scattering spray close to the campsite.

Just a few metres east of the camp was a small but deep chasm, cut artificially out of the earth, with iron steps leading down into abyssal tenebrosity.

It was out of this aperture that Dipper Pines emerged, shortly followed by Wendy Corduroy.

The cryptologist pulled the rim of his cap down over his eyes, blinking rapidly as his pupils adjusted to the blinding glare of the sun. He was sweating within seconds.

Dipper glanced again at his hand. The decrypted message was now only just comprehensible, the blue ink rapidly running like blood from a ruptured vein. He absent-mindedly took a swig from his water bottle.

The two of them passed tables laden with laptops and other equipment, all shielded beneath canvas ceilings. Candy Chiu was seated in front of one of them, intently staring at the screen with her headphones jammed over her ears, but Dipper barely noticed her.

He strode directly up to a tent situated roughly in the centre of the camp and stood awkwardly before it, unsure of what could possibly substitute knocking in the case of a canvas door.

Before he could decide, Wendy pushed him aside and called, "Hey, Professor! We've found something, and we reckon it's big!"

"Quiet!" a disgruntled voice replied from the tent's shaded interior. "I'll be with you in just a minute, but at the moment there's something rather, ah…"

There was a pause. Dipper and Wendy exchanged an exasperated glance.

Wendy sighed and wiped the sweat from beneath her fringe. "Man. And here I thought today might be the day that he comes out of his tent and quits doing all his grumpy old man stuff."

"I heard that!" came an indignant cry from within the tent. "And I'm not that old, Miss Corduroy!"

The crinkling thud of boots against canvas approached, followed by the tent flap being swiftly zipped open.

Professor Stanford Pines stepped out into the sunlight. His eyes squinted behind thick lenses, and his Einstein-like fringe splayed outwards wildly. Strained wrinkles creased the edges of his cheeks as he glanced at Dipper and Wendy in turn. "So, what have you two come to bother me with –"

Dipper eagerly interrupted before Ford could finish. "This!" he proclaimed, holding up his ink-stained palm.

Ford blinked in something bordering bewilderment. "I'm afraid I can't read that, Dipper. It's far too smudged…"

"It's fine, Prof. We've got pictures," Wendy assured. She had already taken out her camera and was busy flicking through her previous images until she found the correct one. She then proffered the camera to Ford.

The professor took the device and peered at the screen quizzically, shielding his eyes from the relentless solar blaze with one hand. A few moments passed before he spoke.

"Yes, this is indeed quite intriguing… What is this triangle symbol meant to represent, I wonder?" Ford mused, ponderingly. "It's similar to the all-seeing eye, but I'm fairly certain that this tomb predates any organisation that used this as a symbol…"

"We saw a message, too," Dipper cut in, attempting and failing to keep the fervent tone out of his voice. "Encrypted with the Atbash cipher."

Ford obligingly flicked to the next image, adjusting his glasses as he did so. His eyebrows rose when he realised what it depicted.

"Well, this is certainly odd behaviour," Ford remarked. "It could be coincidence, but I wonder what it was that made them group in that formation?"

"I was wondering the exact same thing!" Dipper practically burst out.

"Forget the beetles. What about the message?" Wendy turned to Dipper. "Can you remember what it said?"

"Sure," the cryptologist replied, and recited the obscure lines. He found he didn't even need to look at his hand for reference, smudged as it was.

"Do you have any idea what that might mean, Professor Ford?" he inquired.

"It sounds like a ritual of some sort, but I couldn't really say. It doesn't in any way resemble any of the Egyptian spiritual rites I know of…"

He met Dipper's gaze, and the cryptologist saw that Ford's eyes were flooded with intrigue. The professor's face held an expression that neither of his students had ever before seen; one of curiosity and excitement so extreme that his entire body shook with the vigour of anticipation. At that moment, Dipper knew that he had stumbled upon something truly profound.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to see this phenomenon for myself," proclaimed Ford.

"Sure thing," Wendy replied. "Though the beetles are probably long gone by now. They started moving the moment we uncovered them."

"That's a shame. I _knew_ I should've brought an entomologist on this expedition," Ford grumbled.

"Hey, you could be easily forgiven for that, Prof," Wendy assured him as she began to lead the way back to the tomb. "After all, who expects beetles of all things to be doing weird stuff in ancient Egyptian tombs?"

"It's happened before," Ford muttered, only just loudly enough for Dipper to discern.

They passed the computer bank on their way back. Candy was still there, but she had unplugged her headphones and looked up at them as they passed.

"Oh, you guys!" she called. "We've just received an invitation for a video chat!"

"Really? From whom?" Dipper asked.

Ford scratched his forehead. "It better not be Stanley. If it is, this is honestly going to be the last time I bail him out of jail."

The four of them bunched around Candy's laptop screen as the display flickered to video chat. Immediately, a smug, feminine face appeared that most definitely did not belong to Stanley Pines.

Ford grimaced. "On second thoughts, I'd rather talk to Stanley," he groaned.

Similar expressions of disgust were soon reciprocated by the rest of the group. For the ostentatiously stylish blonde on the screen was none other than Pacifica Northwest, the heiress to the outrageously rich Northwest business empire.

The webcam on Pacifica's side was seemingly angled so as to showcase the full grandeur of the private jet she reclined in. The gigantic plush chairs were more akin to sofas, and the attendants who stalked up and down the elaborately carpeted central corridor carried polished platters laden with exotic dishes. Pacifica herself was curled up, catlike, on the sofa-chair opposite the webcam, casually fingering her manicured nails.

"What do you want this time?" Ford seethed.

Pacifica guffawed. "Isn't it obvious, old man? I'm currently flying over the Atlantic on a direct route to North Africa. Take a guess." At that point, one of the attendants placed a flute of champagne in Pacifica's outstretched hand. She sipped the bubbling liquid daintily without taking her eyes from the webcam.

"You can't do this!" Ford protested. "My university has already paid for and organised this expedition, and I intend to stay here for the duration of it!"

"Is that so?" Pacifica's mocking smile widened. "In that case, I suppose I'll just have to buy the expedition off your university. I don't think they'll need much persuasion once they see how much better our equipment and know-how is compared to your little cheapskate operation."

"What about experience?" Dipper countered. "Ford has been Professor of Egyptology at my university for years. But what do _you_ know? Hell, have you ever even _studied_ archaeology?" The words fired from his tongue almost involuntarily. Dipper greatly admired Ford, and found he could hardly ever hold himself back whenever someone insulted his professor.

"That's rich, coming from you," Pacifica retorted, her smooth features creasing into a scowl. "I have my degree, thank you very much. But oh, it appears as though you're still working on yours, isn't that right, Dipper Pines?" She paused momentarily for breath, but didn't leave a long enough gap for Dipper to reply. "So come and talk to me again when you're better qualified!"

"Why can't you just shove off and bother someone else?" Wendy interjected, leaning in threateningly towards the laptop screen. "There are tons of archaeological dig sites around the world that you and your filthy Northwest Foundation can get your fucking shovels into. Do you have some sort of grudge against Ford? Is that why?!"

"Of course not!" Pacifica denied, but her previously suave, smug demeanour was now rapidly unravelling. "My parents taught me to always seek out the big bucks. And it just so happens that the potential from your little tomb is greater than all the rest."

"How can you possibly know that?" demanded Dipper incredulously.

"Oh, just a hunch," Pacifica huffed. "Anyway," she growled, clearly nearing the end of her tether, "this is _not_ a discussion. I am calling to tell you, unequivocally, to get the fuck out of there before my people make you. That tomb is _mine_ , fair and square, and I paid a lot of money to get it. I'll be at Cairo in seven hours, but it'll take me a whole day to get down there. That gives you the rest of today and most of tomorrow to pack up your things and leave. Oh, but I'd gladly appreciate you handing over any artefacts that you've discovered so far. If you try to hide them or even destroy them, I will personally find out and sue you for what you owe me."

With that, the screen blinked once, returning to the desktop display. Candy shook her head woefully.

"Pacifica… she gets more and more… threatening each time she calls," the communications coordinator muttered. She looked around at the others, her glasses badly masking the pale look of terror on her face. "What are we going to do?"

"What are we going to do? Nothing!" Ford shouted. "We absolutely cannot let her win. I'll take this to court myself if I must, but there is no way I am leaving this camp before this expedition is over."

Candy looked down sadly. "Before I thought she might just give up, but now… She's never looked so certain before. Almost desperate…" The small girl trembled.

"Yeah," Wendy nodded. "What's up with that? She's, like, totally obsessed with this place."

Ford straightened up, emitting a deep sigh as he did so. "I can't be certain. But have heard rumours that the Northwest family have some sort of peculiar history with this area."

"What? But how…?" Dipper gasped.

"It's quite likely that it is what it is," Ford pondered, looking briefly at Dipper before he returned his gaze back to the harsh azure sky. "A rumour. But if it _is_ somehow true, it would explain a lot."

An abrupt _crash_ sounded from somewhere behind the equipment tents, causing all members of the company to flinch. A deep yet clearly feminine voice yelled indignantly in response: "Be careful with that, Soos!"

"Dude, believe me, I'm trying!" Soos's panicked voice was interspersed with wheezy breaths.

"What's going on?" Ford demanded as the four of them rounded the corner to see what was going on.

The camp's resident geologists, Soos and Grenda, were in the midst of an attempt to heft a gigantic slab of stone off the ground. Even the two of them, who were both famously unable to control their own strength, seemed to be experiencing difficulty.

"What is this supposed to be, exactly?" asked Ford irritably. His voice carried an undertone of _Whatever it is, it had better be good._

"Ah! Professor!" Grenda exclaimed as she finished hoisting the block upright, so that the elaborate engravings on its face could be easily seen. "We found this behind the waterfall!" she proclaimed, as though that one sentence explained everything.

"I _knew_ that waterfall was hiding something." Soos smiled proudly. "As I keep telling you dudes, life is just like a movie."

"Yes, and you've brought it here because…" Ford began.

"Oh, well…" Grenda muttered, somewhat awkwardly. "We thought it would be easier to date that way. It's wet and slimy behind the waterfall, and we didn't want to damage the equipment."

"'Easier to date'?" Candy repeated, stifling a giggle. "I didn't know you were into big rocks, Grenda."

"I mean _radioactive_ dating!" the big girl corrected furiously, her cheeks flushing a deep vermillion shade.

"I know!" Candy chuckled, as everyone else exchanged exasperated glances.

Dipper cautiously moved towards the gigantic stone to get a better look. The superimposed, grandiose image of the beetle-headed god Khepri loomed out of the centre, surrounded on all sides by intricate rows of hieroglyphs. Dipper could already understand the gist of what they meant without using any of his reference ciphers. But it was something else that, ultimately, caught his attention.

Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of unnaturally vibrant golden-yellow, framed by three sharp edges. A triangle. But the moment Dipper looked up, it disappeared completely from view, like an optic illusion. Or apparition.

At the very same moment, Dipper felt an arcane vibration travel along the length of his body, oscillating along his spine and echoing between the neurons of his cerebrum. He could feel it, and yet… it was unlike any sensory experience he had ever had. It was metaphysical, barely conscious, and yet he was profoundly aware of it; like some sort of psychic intuition. It felt, the cryptologist realised, as though someone was directly prodding his soul. Not just prodding, in fact - squeezing and bending, contorting fantastically, stretching, moulding. Manipulating.

And through it all, he heard a strange sound. Not quite a voice, no… More like the sound of sand cascading off a dune, the sound of aeons passing in the blink of an eye, the sound of history and time itself. And although it was hard to determine, it appeared to sound out two distinct words.

 _"_ _Pine… Tree."_

* * *

 **Why, hello again! Thought I'd just drop in a few endnotes here.**

 **I hope you're enjoying the story so far, and if you are, be sure to let me know, either by reviewing, favouriting or following. If you guys are enjoying this then I'll be sure to continue it, and I'll try to keep to my promises this time around. With that being said, older readers of mine, you are right to be sceptical.**

 **Before you ask, the name of the village is as close a translation of "Gravity Falls" into Arabic that I could squeeze out of Google Translate. It's more than likely erroneous, so if there are any Arabic speakers around, feel free to correct me.**

 **And feel free to sue me for the radioactive dating joke. I probably deserve it.**

 **-Le Fez-Wearing Husky**


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